Wire form for brassieres



March 1, 1949. H T 2,463,319

WIRE FORM FOR BRASSIERES Filed Aug. 15, 1946 Zmventor HERBERT L. SW21 BB EQQMZiLmN (Ittorneg Patented Mar. 1, 1949 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE WIRE FORM FOR BRASSIERES Herbert L. Schwartz, New York, N. Y., assignor to S & S Industries, Bronx, N. Y., a copartnership composed of Herbert L. Schwartz, Marcus Schwartz, and Elsie Schwartz Application August 15, 1946, Serial No. 690,757

1 Claim. 1

This invention relates to lingerie and more particularly to brassires.

It is customary to insert in the breast-supporting cups of a brassire a wire form which is adapted to preserve the shape of these cups and hold them up when the brassiere is worn. To this end, a form-giving wire is inserted in pockets formed at the rims of the cups of the brassire, and the wire is anchored in these pockets by stitches placed through the latter and eyes formed by the hooked ends of the wire. The hooked ends of the wire are inevitably considerably wider than the wire proper, requiring pockets for the wire which are of suflicient width to admit the hooked wire ends. This leaves the wire rather loose in the pockets, and the few stitches through the hooked wire ends are solely relied upon to hold the cups of the brassiere from sliding on the wire and breaking through the ends of the pockets. The stitches through the hooked wire ends are, therefore, under very considerable tension at times and are liable to break soon, or the hooked wire ends unhook from the stitches when the brassire slides on the wire, leaving the hooked ends free to rip the brassire and even injure the wearer.

It is the primary aim and object of the present invention to provide a wire form for a brassire or the like, which has none of the disadvantages of the prior wire forms, and which is, moreover, even better form-preserving than the latter.

The above and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be fully understood from the following description, reference being had to the accompanying illustrative drawings.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a brassire incorporating a wire form which embodies the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a detail view of the wire form; and

Fig. 3 is an enlarged fragmentary section through one of the ends of the wire form.

Referring to the drawings, and particularly to Fig. 1 thereof, the reference numeral l designates a conventional brassire having the usual breast-supporting cups I2, chest straps M with the customary eye and hook closure of which the hook is shown at I6, and shoulder straps l8. sewed at 20 to the rims of the cups l2 of the brassire are pipes or pockets 22 which are open at their adjacent ends and closed at their remote ends. The pockets 22 may be made from the same material as the brassire, and formed by doubling back the material and sewing it 2 along the superposed edges thereof, preferably by the lines of stitching 20 by which the pockets are secured to the brassiere.

Inserted in the pockets 22 is a wire form 24, consisting of two form-giving portions 26 and a connecting yoke 28. The form is preferably made from spring wire so that it will recover its shape after deformation. To insert the wire form 24 into the pockets 22, the form is bent until the ends 29 thereof are in such close proximity to each other that they may be fed into the adjacent open ends of the pockets 22. After thus inserting the wire form 24 in the pockets 22, the same is permitted to recover its original shape so as to hold the cups 12 of the brassire in the normal relative disposition shown in Fig. 1. The exposed yoke 28 of the inserted wire form 24 is covered by a flap 30 of any suitable textile fabric, which is preferably sewed to the brassire by a line of stitching 32.

Pressfitted over, or otherwise secured to, the ends 29 of the wire form 24 are cylindrical caps 34 each of which is provided with an eye opening 36 to receive the stitches 4!} which are placed through the ends of the pockets 22 and the adjacent portions of the brassire (Fig. 1). The caps 34 are only little larger in diameter than the wire of the form 24, and have rounded leading tips 42 for their ready insertion into the pockets 22. The opposite ends of the caps 34 may be beveled at 44 so as to merge smoothly into the wire of the form 24.

The cylindrical caps 34 on the ends of the wire form 24 are not liable to rip the brassire and cannot possibly injure the wearer of the brassire, even if breaking through the brassiere in some extraordinary manner. Also, the stitches 40 through the eye openings 36 in the caps 34 on the wire form have no avenue of escape therefrom, and the eye openings 36 may be made so small that a few stitches placed therethrough may be bunched together rather snugly in these openings and thus hold the wire form 24 more securely in place on the brassiere and also render the stitches more tear resistant over a long period of use of the brassire. Furthermore, the relatively small difference in the diameters of the caps 34 and the wire of the form 24 permits the use of pockets 22 of a width to admit the caps 34 without danger of tearing the pockets, yet to enclose the wire of the form 24 sufllciently snugly to resist any appreciable sliding of the brassiere on the wire form. In this way, the

holding stitches 40 at the ends of the wire form are subjected to negligible stresses only under any wearing conditions of the brassire.

While in the present disclosure the wire form 24 is shown extending around the lower halves of the cups I! of the brassiere, it is to be understood that the present wire form may be extended with equal advantage around theupper halves of these cups rather than the lower halves thereof.

Having thus described my invention, what I 10 claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

In -combination with a brassire having breast-receiving portions and pockets at least partially surrounding said portions, respectively, a reen'forcing wire extending in said pockets with little clearance therein, and cylindrical caps with rounded tips carried by the ends, respectively, of said wire and having holes, respectively, to receive stitches placed through said pockets, respectively, said caps being of only slightly larger diameter than said wire so as to fit said pockets snugly.

HERBERT L. SCHWARTZ.

REFERENCES CITED 7 The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,837,958 Ferrero Dec. 22, 1931 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 548,177 France Oct. 13, 1922 825,043 France Nov. 27, 1937 

